


On The Road

by AnxiousCoffee (TheHallowedAngel)



Series: Midnight, Texas (Both Media Sources) [2]
Category: Midnight Texas (TV)
Genre: Caring Joe, Gen, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Motion Sickness, Sick Manfred, Sickfic, Vomiting, emeto
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-29
Updated: 2019-09-29
Packaged: 2020-11-07 15:22:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20819519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheHallowedAngel/pseuds/AnxiousCoffee
Summary: I've been craving some full frontal Manfred puke, and since no one else has written any I thought I would carry that torch for a while. So have this fic, in which the stress of everything over the past few days turns normally manageable motion sickness into his worst nightmare.Or, the one where Manfred pukes twice and Joe may or may not use the bag to go shopping at the end of the week.





	On The Road

**Author's Note:**

> Should be obvious but there's puke in this, like a lot (well, in theory), so read at your own risk.

“What you did was good, you know.” 

Joe had to break the silence, he had to, because as much as Manfred seemed to be enjoying the whole brooding thing he had going over there, the air in the car was bitter and thick and smelt of stress.

Manfred didn't reply, and each of the hundred glances Joe made in his direction were just met with the same tensed shoulders and the back of the same messy, brown hair. Manfred was watching the scenery pass, face propped up on an arm that was, in turn, propped up on the door, leant against the half open window.

Manfred’s jaw was working, clenching and unclenching and teeth grinding, making the veins in his forehead work more than Joe assumed they ever had. 

Joe kept catching the movement when he flicked his eyes across to Manfred. He really wanted the kid to just talk to him about whatever was going on in that head of his, because his thoughts were so loud that Joe could almost hear them.

"Manfred, talk to me." This time his voice was soft, and it carried through the cab and out of the window like it knew exactly where it was going. This time Manfred turned to look at him.

Joe immediately grimaced, because his skin was almost grey, his hair stuck to his forehead with sweat, and his throat was working twice as hard as his jaw. 

"Do you- do I need to pull over?" once again switching his head back and forth between the road and Manfred, Joe had one eyebrow raised, long hair seeming to dance in the movement.

Manfred nodded and scrubbed a hand over his mouth, then clenching it into a fist to press to his lips. Joe nodded in return and then went back to stare at the asphalt laid out in front, trying to find a safe place to pull off of the road. But the highway out of Davey was often a busy one, because lots of people drove through and few of them stop for long. Midnight was a ghost town but Davey was only a few hundred more in numbers; it just happened to be one of those in-between-towns on the journey from A to B.

Joe heard Manfred retch into a closed mouth, a strained sound that was muffled by a cupped hand and ended in a cough, and he started to look more frantically for a way out of the steady traffic flow, not to save his car but to save Manfred’s pride.

“Okay, Manfred, just hold on- goodness me there has to be a lay-by somewhere!” he was craning his neck over the steering wheel and watching the side of the road, eyes darting between the cars in front and the edge of the lane until he finally saw that beautiful little tuck-away and he made for it like the car was on fire.

As Joe put the car into park Manfred heaved again, but this time he heard the splash of something as it pushed up his throat and ballooned out his cheeks. Something dripped between his fingers and onto his lap as Manfred squeezed his eyes shut and fumbled with the other hand to unbuckled himself and throw open the door.

Joe watched as he spilled out onto the side of the road and gave one last fluid heave and he heard puke hit the sand, Manfred coughing like he had just been dragged above water. 

As soon as the cost was clear Joe opened his door and rounded the front of the car to look down at the hunched over form leaning against the side panel of his truck. Manfred turned his head away the second he was in view of Joe, something that Joe understood.

“Can I do anything to help?” as a rule, Joe never touched anyone without asking until he knew their boundaries, and when Manfred gathered and spat out whatever was in his mouth and then shrugged, Joe sighed.

“Just-” he was cut off, turning away from Joe to cough up another gross mouthful and spit it to the ground. “God, do you have a tissue?” Manfred straightened up to look Joe in the eyes, sick and drool clinging to his lips and chin and coating his face where his hand had been pressed so tightly to it in the car.

“Not sure about him, but I do.” Joe said, reaching in through the open door to produce a handful of napkins from somewhere deep within the cab. Manfred had flushed red at his response and was looking away again. He always forgot how religious Joe was, and while he did try his best not to use the Lord’s name in vain or whatever when Joe was around, he still slipped up every so often. 

“Here” Joe offered him the stack of tissues with a soft smile, and Manfred took them gratefully, plucking one off of the top to wipe his face and then using another to blow his nose. He shuddered at the feeling, because his snot was chunky and quite frankly it had no business feeling like that. He silently forbade it from ever being like that again.

“Sorry.” Manfred muttered the words like he didn’t even want Joe to hear them, and he scratched the back of his head like he wanted the ground to open up and swallow him before Joe got a chance to reply.

“‘S’all good, these things happen.” Joe shoved his hands into his pockets and rocked on the balls of his feet, smiling in the way he used only for Chuy and for his close friends.

It was a smile like his regular smile, except deeper, softer, putting dimples in his cheeks and making the corners of his eyes wrinkle. It made him look more his age but so much younger all at once, and it made Manfred feel 10 times better almost immediately.

“You good?” Joe pushed a hand through his hair to try and bring back some order, huffing in defeat as it quickly fell back into the same mess, wind throwing it in every direction.

“Yeah, thanks” Manfred backed up his answer with a firm nod because even he didn’t trust his own voice, which betrayed the honesty to his words by breaking to a different tone with each word. Joe didn’t comment.

“C’mon, back in the truck then.” 

Joe slapped the hood of the truck, taking more care than Manfred thought was needed, and then walked back to the driver’s side, climbing in and twisting to search around behind his seat and then producing a plastic bag. He handed it to Manfred, who in turn flushed red again. Joe chuckled.

“Don’t get like that, we just can’t be pulling over again. Chuy and I are getting lunch together and he’ll be very upset with me if I’m late. I’m in trouble already, y’know how it is.”

Manfred didn’t know, actually, but he nodded all the same and took the bag gingerly. He twisted it with both hands to try and quell his nerves as Joe started the engine and pulled out into traffic.

-

Manfred ended up having to hurriedly open the bag about a half hour later. They had just crossed the border into Midnight, literally just passed the sign, and Joe asked to touch him and then stretched an arm over to run his hand over the small of Manfred’s back. 

It would be easy driving from now on, no need to have both hands on the wheel or change gear.

A small gag had fluid rushing into the bag, Manfred coughing and spluttering on the end of it, spitting and trying in vain to detach the strings connected to his lips. He had his head buried as far into the bag as he could manage, bent over his lap, and Joe did his best not to look over at him, though he stole a glance when another heave ushered a thin wash that left his tongue bitter and splashed into the mess already weighing the bag down, and the smell had him dry heaving for a few minutes after that. Manfred didn’t eat much to for him to even have enough in his stomach to puke twice was unheard of.

He wasn’t too embarrassed about throwing up into a plastic bag in front of Joe, the tips of his ears burnt for the rest of the drive, granted, but the worst part of this all was having to get out of the car and have Fiji and Bobo watch from the steps into Midnight Pawn as he walked over to the most suitable place he could find. There he upend the bag to shake everything out onto the ground, and he was very careful to make sure none of it got on his shoes or the bottom of his pants.

Well, it was that or when Joe took the bag from him, when he went to put it in the big bin near the pawn shop, and then carried it home with him. It was certainly one of the two.

Manfred caught Joe washing it out later, using the hose. He had been watching the sunset through his window, and he could only hope it would be put back into the truck for the same purpose and not used to fetch shopping home when he and Chuy drive out at the end of the week. Joe was painfully unphased by these sorts of things, so either possibility was just as likely as the other, and that made Manfred very uneasy.


End file.
